“Sure, in the back of people’s minds. We’ve thought about it,” Bill Koefoed, Microsoft’s general manager of investor relations, told the Times.

Here’s an excerpt from Dudley’s column in today’s paper:

(Bill) Gates and (CEO Steve) Ballmer together own about 11 percent of the shares. About two-thirds of the rest is held by about 1,700 institutional investors and mutual funds.

To go private, Microsoft would have to reduce the number of shareholders below 300.

Maybe one could be the Gates Foundation. Imagine what it would do for the company’s reputation and morale if people buying Windows knew a portion of the profits would directly benefit the world’s poor?

Everyone would love that, except Apple and that person at last week’s shareholders meeting who asked Gates to give more to investors and less to sick and impoverished children.